When "Touch"
returns to FOX for its second season, it will be set in a new city,
with new characters and a new direction. Say goodbye to the Big
Apple, the nefarious group home and the stand-alone episodes of the
week. Instead, the show will boast a bigger, more action-packed,
L.A.-set storyline.

"By the end of
the season, we had introduced a more serialized engine to the show,
and we ended the season with Kiefer Sutherland's character (Martin
Bohm) taking his son (Jake) and running, basically on the run, and
coming all the way to California in search of this mysterious girl
names Amelia," Exec. Producer Tim Kring explained. "We sort of
introduced the idea of this mystery girl early in the season, in
season one, and by the end of the season we are in Los Angeles on the
journey to finding her, and that connects us up with Maria Bello's
character who is Amelia's mother. That's where we pick up the
season.

"In many ways
everything changes from the first season to the second season in that
we took the entire storyline and took it from New York City to Los
Angeles, and that entire world and all the characters that were in
that world are starting pretty much fresh in the second season."

"Touch"
started strong in its first season - both in storytelling and
ratings. But as the show became increasingly, well, touchy-feely, it
started to lose viewers. It was especially odd watching Sutherland,
fresh from his butt-kicking run as Jack Bauer on "24," portray a
pushover.

As the season
winded down, however, Sutherland's character found himself in more
action-packed situations as the Bohms learned of a larger scheme to
capture Jake and harness his special powers (he can sense and
mathematically predict world patterns).

Kring said his
plan, from the beginning, was to take "Touch" down this road.

"Well, again, if
you paid attention to the show last year, we did start as a sort of
standalone show because, frankly, we wanted to make sure that we got
viewers when new viewers were sampling it at the beginning of the
season," he said. "We wanted to make sure that people weren't
thrown off of the show because they didn't know what was going on.
But we started introducing the idea of a serialization really early
on. In the very first episode after the pilot, we introduced that
there was a mysterious person in this room in the board-and-care
facility. And we slowly started to leak out who that was. And by
episode six, when Danny Glover's character was killed, we knew that
he died in a way that was mysterious, and it was attached to this
corporation, Aster Corps., that he seemed very afraid of.

"I think it was
a very subtle burn, a kind of slow fuse that built to the last three
or so episodes. And by that time, the show had morphed into much more
of a serialized show. And then picking up where that left off, we
kind of picked that up in a full-blown way. It was designed, but a
bit subtle for the audience, I think."

As for the
comparisons with "24," Kring said he's happy to have a lead actor
who is so versatile.

"I think it's
an advantage to have somebody who has that in his wheelhouse, and
this character was always designed to be an every man who was put in
extraordinary circumstances and forced to become much more of an
action kind a guy than Jack Bauer ever was," Kring said. "In
other words, Jack Bauer, his backstory was much less of an ordinary
guy; he was sort of built to be that guy. This guy was not built to
be that guy. He was a reporter and a family man, but he's thrown
into these extraordinary circumstances, and I think it's really
just using some of the skill sets that come along with somebody like
Kiefer."

"Touch"
airs Friday at 8 p.m. on FOX.

••••••••

Upcoming episode
information from FOX:

'Touch' reconnects with
a heart-pounding thrill ride in the special two-hour season two
premiere

Season two of
"Touch" picks up right where season one left off - with Kiefer
Sutherland's character, Martin, on the run with his son, Jake
(David Mazouz).

Martin is
determined to keep Jake safe from those who want to exploit his
supernatural abilities, but Jake is on a mission of his own - to
find the elusive Amelia (Saxon Sharbino). When Jake leads Martin to
Los Angeles and to Amelia's mother, Lucy Robbins (Maria Bello),
these three form an ad hoc family, searching for the girl who may be
the key to understanding Jake's abilities.

Factoring into the
unfolding equation is the genius of Aster Corps., Calvin Norburg
(Lukas Haas), who's on the verge of making a career-defining
discovery, as well as the extreme religious zealot, Guillermo Ortiz
(Said Taghmaoui), who stops at nothing to attain his vision. As
ominous connections appear, Martin remains determined to uncover a
global conspiracy in order to protect his family and save the lives
of the innocent in the special two-hour season two premiere episode
of "Touch," titled "Event Horizon/Closer," airing Friday,
Feb. 8 (8-10 p.m.), on FOX.